


places where we come from

by myhomeistheshire



Category: The Strange Case of Starship Iris (Podcast)
Genre: Light Angst, it's backstory time bitches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 10:56:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19171858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhomeistheshire/pseuds/myhomeistheshire
Summary: What happens when you mix moonshine, guilt, and trauma?Or, how RJ became a sniper.





	places where we come from

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wittylittleknitter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wittylittleknitter/gifts).



> tw: ptsd mention

They don’t talk about their past much. Or at all. In this way, RJ somehow fits in with the rest of the crew and their staunch silences. They feel like they’re still on unsteady ground, however, with the knowledge supplied by the recordings giving them more knowledge than they should have, more secrets and hidden parts of the others than they would have been given otherwise.

It tinges everything. Every conversation is a see-saw, every interaction walking a tightrope. Both RJ and Park walk around the _Iris II_ like ghosts, afraid that if they touch something it’ll all implode. They’re the only ones who haven’t done anything to make this place feel like home; Violet’s customized the medbay with some sort of comprehensive alphabetical system, Arkady brought a leaf of her mint plant that has started growing sprouts, Sana has some sort of mechanical artwork on her wall, and Krejjh and Jeeter have chipped dwarnian text into the walls of the cockpit. RJ cried when they chipped a mug, so. It’s a work in progress.

 

Maybe, they think, it’s not something the others feel as piercingly as they do - but this theory is crushed one night after too much moonshine and not enough tempered logic.

 

“RJ McCabe,” Arkady slurs as she falls next to them on the couch. The others have clustered around the table and are playing some sort of Dwarnian board game, supplanting pieces with coins and screws and bottle tops.

“Arkady Patel,” they quip back. “What, no interest in alien team games?”

Arkady snorts. “Not with the way Krejjh is explaining it,” she says with another swig of moonshine. “I got lost three words in - I’ll leave the overly complicated strategy games to the people who enjoy it.”

And indeed, the others look intrigued by Krejjh’s explanations. RJ hides a laugh in a sip of their drink, which someone - Jeeter, maybe? - had been kind enough to mix with a juice powder to make it just slightly more tolerable.

“So,” Arkady starts, and then waits.

“So.” RJ replies warily.

“You know all about us,” Arkady says before trailing off again, as if her mind isn’t traveling in straight lines. Maybe, RJ thinks, she’s so drunk she won’t remember this conversation tomorrow. One can only hope.

“You want to know...what? Where I grew up? My favorite color? What my childhood fear was?”

“Why don’t we start with past occupations?” The woman asks pointedly. “Namely - explain your sniper ways, McCabe.”

They could lie. They could make something up like they’d always done, and she would never be the wiser. But...they felt the guilt weighing in their chest. They _did_ know more about the crew than they should. They couldn’t take that back. And so they take a deep breath and an even deeper swig of the juice-moonshine concoction, and then they speak.

 

“I spent a lot of time in the academy. Obviously. My parents - well, they’d rather I be off at a boarding school than around to bug them, so I spent a lot of summers away at various camps as well. When I was thirteen, they sent me to an IGR Camp for Military Youth, and...um, it might not surprise you that I didn’t exactly fit in.” They shrug, feeling the weight of Arkady’s gaze on them and brushing past it. “I spent a lot of time at the shooting range as an alternative to social interactions, and the instructors there found out I was good with a gun. Like, _really_ good. So good that they wanted me back that summer, and the next, and the next. All the way until I was seventeen, and then it was just - the only thing I was good at, y’know? _Really_ good at. And that year was the beginning of the war, and the year I came out to my family, which - well. There was only one thing left that I knew how to do, which was fight. So I fought.”

They hazard a glance at Arkady, who is watching them steadily. _Please don’t remember this. Please don’t remember_ me _like this_.

“The war was...it changed me. It changed everything. I spent so much time on the front lines that I forgot what normal life was, or that there was anything besides _surviving_ that mattered. I had more than one unit I was assigned where I was the only one left alive, because I was always at a distance. So when it was over, I expected...I don’t know. Maybe some therapy. Maybe to be sent off to the outer planets to keep the peace. But instead I got an official letter thanking me for my service, and then nothing. It was - unimagineable. I was given a unit in a military complex, and I remember spending weeks on end in that apartment. Not being able to leave for groceries. Not sleeping for days. Spending hours crouched below my window, scoping out the best vantage points and potential weaknesses. It took three months of that before I started getting anywhere close to normal, and then - then there was another letter. And that was it.”

They down the rest of the drink. Some of it misses and slides down their chin, dripping onto their shirt before they can stop it. “ _Shit_ ,” they exclaim, slamming their glass down harder than they meant to as they attempt to swab the remainder from their skin. The alcohol burns on their skin, down their throat, on their tongue. Everything feels off. The last time someone had known this much about them was in a psychiatric room, where every question and answer meant the difference between reenlistment and internment. Not like this - curled up on a couch, the world spinning, no eyes or ears but those of the woman listening.

“I’m sorry, RJ,” Arkady says softly. And it sounds like she means it, although every nerve in their body is reminding them what a good liar Arkady is, how anyone can be a good enough liar if they want to be -

 Maybe they just need to give in and believe.

 

It’s been drilled into them since childhood: the only people you can trust are those in the Republic. Your superiors are your morality, your obedience, your touchstone. And now that they have gone against this, they have been left with nothing; with only the choice that they make.

 

“Thank you,” they whisper, voice hoarse from more than the alcohol.

 

They choose to trust.

 

 


End file.
